Never Again Victimized
by minidraken
Summary: THE LIVING THINGS SERIES: PART 3/3: Sequel to By Your Side! The magical world is changing, politically and socially. What will Harry and Tom do when the reasons for Voldemort's riot reveal themselves? It will be a struggle for the powerful duo, amongst disobedient children, deceiving adults and demanding elders. Harry/Tom pairing
1. I'll Be Gone

**Never Again Victimized**

Disclaimer: I solemnly swear I do not own the published masterpiece of Harry Potter. I also do not write and publish this story to earn any sort of profit. I simply do it because I need to.

Claimer: I do, however, own and take full responsibility for this twisted story.

Beta read by Arithmancy Master.

Chapter One

_I'll Be Gone_

* * *

A deep _dong_ sounded through the heavy, still air in the quiet little town Lóng cháo. It rang softly, blending with the chirping of crickets and the twittering of birds. It sounded again, flowing through the open doors, into the room and over the shiny, wooden floor. The small, square space was still and very quiet, but warm from the boiling mixture in the cauldron in one corner of it.

In the middle, lying on the sleek floorboards, was an old man with a balding head and an impressively long, silvery moustache, which was creating two thick tails that reached down to rest on his shrunken chest. He was seemingly asleep, holding his wrinkled eyelids closed, and his breathing was slow. Beneath the hems of his thick, kimono styled robes, whose fabric was cluttered with rich embellishments, a pair of scrawny, pale feet peeked out. They looked like they hadn't been used for quite a while, if ever, for they were unnaturally small and crumpled.

Around the old man, a dark haired wizard paced in circuits, murmuring soft, magical words in Latin. Held in one of his weathered hands was a brass censer, swinging from side to side on its thin chain, spreading sweet scenting incense through the entire room. He padded on, bare foot, watching the results of his chanting through a pair of dark, wine coloured eyes.

Golden swirls of magic surrounded the old man's feet, making them glow. Knowing it was his cue, the wizard stopped right in front of them and stretched his free hand out in a clawing gesture. On one of his fingers sat golden band that was gleaming with tiny flickers of ever present magic.

The wizard turned the palm of his hand to face the ceiling and brought it up, up, up, and then _clenched_. The old man's feet lit up with an inner glow, and as the fingers on the hand uncurled and started to make shifting movements towards the palm, the feet themselves started to grow. Ever so slowly, they fattened, swelled and turned a healthy hue of red as blood started to flow into them.

The old man gasped suddenly and opened his almond shaped, brown eyes with a look of wonder. He ran them down his wizened body and looked positively awestruck when they took in the look of the healed feet, that started to flex experimentally. As an immediate result, fat tears started to fall down the man's wrinkled cheeks.

The younger wizard lowered his hands, put the censer down onto a low table and took a seat in a comfortable position on his knees, right where he stood on the floor. The old man hurriedly scrambled to imitate his posture, and then flung himself forward into a full bow with his hands and forehead flat on the ground.

His stumbling ramblings of praise and gratitude went on for quite a while, until he finally let himself be interrupted by the more and more urgent clearing of a throat that sounded in the still room. He sat up again, his palms still pressed onto the floor, as he looked up at the man in front of him with deepest gratitude. "Shénqí yīzhì zhě Potter," he started in a weakly shivery voice, addressing the foreign Healer with deepest respect. He opened his mouth to start on another tirade, but he was halted by a held up palm.

"Lǎo Xu," Harry addressed the man with a warm smile. "Zhè shì wǒ de gōngzuò." Most of the people Harry healed would insist he must be treated with such respect he might as well be a divinity. Every time, he had to insist it was only a job for him.

Before the old man could start anew to insist it was not merely a job but a life altering experience that was the answers to his dreams, of how no one else had succeeded in healing him and so forth, Harry got to his feet and walked over to the gleaming, creamy liquid in the steaming hot cauldron. He picked a crystal vial out of one of his deep cloak pockets, and filled it to the rim with the potion, whereafter he put the stopper into its throat and handed it over to the ancient, Chinese wizard.

"Zài yīgè xīngqí měitiān liǎng cì. Èr liǎng dī," he told his patient in his stern I-am-a-professional-so-you-should-listen-closely voice.

He got a couple of eager bows of the head in response, telling him the obedient man would indeed take two drops of the potion twice a day for one week. "Shénqí yīzhì zhě Potter. Xièxiè! Xièxiè!"

When the old wizard had finally left, after forcing his Healer to reluctantly accept a basket of ripe plums, Harry let out a deep sigh in relief and toed into a pair of Geta. He wrapped his crimson cloak in soft silk closer around his body, covering up his pearl white working robes a bit better, before stepping out of his infirmary and locking the doors behind him. He took a deep breath from the fresh evening air to clear his nostrils from the calming incense that was clogging up his mind.

Once he could think clearly again, he walked down the neat stone road, hearing the _clicking_ of his wooden shoes as they hit the hard surface beneath. The houses to the left side of the road were painted white, with wooden windows in red, and their black roofs were worn and sloping down towards him. On the other side of the road lay a lazy river with murky, green water in it. It was lined by thick, stone railings, and across it not too far away was a vaulted stone bridge.

Harry crossed it in calm strides, spying a fat frog on one of the knotted branches in the willow tree on the other side of the waters as he walked past it, and then he made his way along one of the wider streets in the north part of town. There was nearly no one out on the streets of this magical village at this late hour, as it was a mid-week evening. Only a couple of wild-eyed hags, a few hurrying wizards and witches, as well as a group of solemn looking goblins, that were murmuring to each other in quick Chinese, could be seen.

Harry turned right and stopped in front of a pair of high, darkly wooden gates. The small, golden sign over the handle read: _T. M. Riddle. H. J. Potter_.

He plucked out a golden key out of his cloak pocket and unlocked the gates, stepped into a calm little garden and turned around to re-close and relock the entrance to his home. He trekked up a snaking, gravel path towards the patio of the traditionally styled Chinese house and mock bowed once to the golden dragon over the door before entering.

"You are late," his partner immediately called out to him once he was inside, and Harry couldn't help but smile at the predictability of the reaction as he toed out of his clogs and padded through the hallway and into the living room. He shrugged out of his cloak and lazily tossed it into the air, where it hovered for a moment before a wooden hanger zoomed up to it and took it back to the wardrobe by the front door.

" 'A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to,' " he quoted with a smirk as he crossed the room to the slim writing desk to put the plums down, and earned himself a deep sigh from the handsome man seated in the plush sofa by the fireplace. A pair of gleaming red eyes turned away from the Chinese illustrated magazine about the most recent science on the subject of body-altering potions. They glared at him.

"You meant to arrive precisely at eleven thirty three? My mistake," Tom said quietly, as if to himself.

"It is a quote," Harry informed in good-humour, "from the Muggle fantasy novel I'm currently reading – well, re-reading actually... Surely, you've heard of Tolkien?"

"No," the other answered with a long-suffering sigh, flipping a page in his magazine. "Unlike you, I do not interest myself with silly Muggle nonsense about a world that does not exist."

"Well, some of them aren't too far from the truth. It's amusing to compare, and they're exciting to read."

"I doubt it," Tom concluded without looking up from the paper.

Harry snorted softly with a fond smile as he walked over to the sofa group and sat down in his favourite armchair, right next to Tom's preferred seat on the right side of the smallest sofa. A short wave of his ivy wand made a magazine of his own zoom into his hands, and he opened it up with a contented sigh, leafing through the pages of _Flamboyant Fashion_ _for the Fancy_. Twenty pages in, he reached the part he had bought the magazine for: a spread about the very popular and world wide brand _Silsel: _his best friend Silas Selwyn's fashion line.

"How was your day?" he asked in a barely audible voice, knowing full well that lines like such, which were hinting at a domestic life, rarely were answered by the love of his life, who detested everything that had any form of resemblance to normalcy.

Remarkably, this evening turned out to be an exception to the rule. "Horribly disappointing."

"Oh?" Harry tore his eyes away from the, let's say interesting, mixture of lime green, stark yellow and shimmering silver, and met eyes with his paramour. "How so?"

Tom put his paper down onto the low coffee table with a deep sigh and leaned back fully against the plush backrest, rubbing his temples as if battling a headache. Harry responded by picking up his wand again, casting a chain of spells that would make the gadgets in the kitchen prepare a pot of steaming hot oolong tea, while studying the other closely.

"Did something happen at work?" he questioned carefully, gaining himself a weak glare.

Tom had occupied himself with an array of different occupations over the years. Jumping from one thing to another restlessly, never settling down. He'd been a student, he'd been a teacher. He'd tiptoed through the political arena and he'd made great success as a professional artist, although he'd claimed to hate the very concept of splattering a little paint onto a canvas and then selling it to the highest bidder. Harry knew it was false, for as much as he loved to read Muggle fantasy novels, Tom loved to paint, just for the fun of it and nothing else.

At the moment, Harry's 43 year old lover was holding lectures in the Chinese magical school Xiāo tīzi on top of the mountain Bùzhōu Shān, whose insides were the home of the majority of the world's goblins, and whose outside was covered with wild dragons in a magical wildlife sanctuary. Some of the world's most prominent scholars travelled there for Tom's, among others', lectures on ground-breaking new theories and inventions. Harry also held lectures there, from time to time, whenever he'd discovered something new in the line of Healing. But Tom worked out new solutions and concepts in all kinds of magic, all the time, so he had enough material to be employed at the institution of magical research as an Alchemist, which against popular belief had less to do with creating gold out of metal and more to do with being a magical scientist.

From time to time, the two of them worked on projects together. It often started with one of them taking work home, having to go into details with the other who became more and more involved. It always ended in a fierce argument that lasted for hours, before they could come to a mutual understanding and finally complete the work together. Amazingly enough, it was always the work they did together they got the most publicity for. It seemed that when it came to theoretical practice, they completed each other almost to perfection.

At the moment though, the two of them worked on separate projects, Harry being very involved with his work in messing with Necromancy techniques in the line of Healing. He had started to involve himself with the mystery of magic loss, which could either show up as a symptom of depression, or be a condition one was born with, such as a Squib.

Tom, on the other hand, had become more and more obsessed with the mystery the Crystal of Parseltongue had presented them with in their final year at Hogwarts. Now, he was restlessly searching for additional Parselmouths all over the world, which was what had taken them to China in the first place, even if it had been work which had kept them there.

Tom straightened up in his seat as the ceramic tea set swooshed into the room and instantly started to pour the scalding liquid into a pair of simple, brown teacups. He plucked his cup out of the air, which he easily distinguished from Harry's cup whose rim was chipped in a couple of places from a few too many accidents against the floor, and took a careful sip out of it.

"I trust you recall I met with a man who claimed he knew this woman, who could lead me to 'the last Parselmouths in the world'. Well, I found the woman, a very old witch by the name Kwan Cōng Li."

Harry leaned forward in his seat in excitement. "And?"

A deep sigh sounded. "_And_, she told me of a mysterious legend about 'The White Lady'. Then, at long last, she gave me names. Two names. It was near impossible to make any progress from there, as they had no interest in being found. Very secretive people. But I did find them, today." Tom scrunched up his face to make an expression similar to the one he made every time he smelt something far from pleasant. "They weren't Parselmouths. They were Animagi. _Pit vipers_, a green one and a white one." Tom's mouth twisted into a bitter sneer before he took another sip out of his steaming tea cup. "All that work for nothing. I'd wager there aren't any Parselmouths at all in this part of the world either. But if they aren't here, where? We've already searched the rest of the planet."

Harry couldn't disagree with that; they _had _travelled to every part of the world by now. 25 years on foot, jumping from place to place. They had wandered the northern parts of Canada, snaked their way up Africa, and had lived in most of the European countries one time or the other. They had been to Australia, to the United States, to Chile and Argentina. They'd spent a lot of time in Iraq, in Congo, and in Indonesia. The longest time they'd stuck to one place had been in Norway, where they had lived for five years during which Harry had taught Necromancy and Tom Alchemy at Durmstrang Institute. Now, they had been in China for six months, and where they were going next, Harry could only guess. Tom was the one who dictated all their trips, which suited him just fine. In fact, he found it a very exciting surprise every time they were to uproot and settle down somewhere else.

But so far, just like Tom said, there had been few, if any, signs of additional Parselmouths. So far, it looked like they were alone. Harry had become quite good at both speaking and understanding the snake language, although his skills were far from perfect. Tom kept telling him he was doing little nuances of sounds wrongly, pointing out he should place his tongue further back in his mouth, or he should push it more firmly against his teeth, or he should just let it lie flat to make a sound similar to that of a pissed off cat.

Fully aware his teacher was a manic perfectionist, Harry tried his best but didn't take it all too seriously. He did alright, according to his own standards.

To help things along, they had conducted a simplistic alphabet for the language, so that they could write words and sounds down. Parseltongue was well on its way to becoming a written language, although they still had a few kinks to work out, such as Tom's infernal insistence of making sure all sounds sounded _exactly_ like they did when snakes spoke. It complicated things severely as, honestly, Harry couldn't tell the difference at all. But that was Tom for you, he would never settle for anything but the best, and his standards were sky high.

"Well, to hell with that, then," Harry dictated, dropped his magazine onto the table and got up from the chair. "We're uncorking that outrageously fancy wine bottle Aby gave us last year, and we're going for a picnic."

"A picnic?" Tom questioned with open dislike. "I hate to remind you it's the middle of the night, and I have work tomorrow."

"I don't," Harry answered as he pelted through the hallway and into the kitchen, pulling out the bottle with wary hands and grabbing a couple of footed glass tumblers before returning to the living room. "And it's not night; it's late evening." He smiled brilliantly at the scowl his partner shot at him. "Come on, we'll sit on the patio in the garden, and I'll give you a massage. How about it?"

Tom sighed deeply, but got up nonetheless and opened up the glassed patio doors before crossing the threshold. "Very well, if I end up slurring through my lecture tomorrow, the entire blame is on you."

Harry snickered quietly and followed his lover out into the garden. "Sounds like fun – can I watch?"

He didn't get an answer. The two of them sat down on the edge of the wooden floorboards letting their naked feet rest softly on the green grass of the small, enclosed garden with a little pond full of pale pink water lilies. Harry snapped his fingers, making the cork stopper pop out in one go; a party trick he'd learned from Silas. The wine of the brand Superior Red was the exact shade of Harry's eyes, and it murmured quietly as it filled up first one, then two glasses half way.

A sharp _clink_ sounded in the still evening as the two wizards toasted and then sipped carefully on the burgundy liquid. Harry looked up to the starlit sky and couldn't help his habit of tracing the shapes and reading the secrets hidden in them.

"Why are you so insistent on finding them anyway?" he asked after a moment of silence. "What are you planning to do when you find them?"

Tom seemed a bit cheered up as he noticed his partner had chosen the word _when_ rather than _if_. "I'm not sure," he confessed lightly. "It's just that kind of thing that keeps nagging me to madness until I solve the mystery and can move on. Perhaps I'll make contact, perhaps together we can use our powers for something productive, but I do not have a _plan_ per se."

"That's unlike you," Harry judged carefully and took another sip out of his tumbler. A star in particular caught his interest, and he kept his focus on it while opening his mind for the images and solutions to start flooding in.

"Perhaps," he got as a non-committal reply before Tom drained his glass and arose from his seat. "Well, this was fun."

Harry snorted softly but didn't avert his gaze. "Ever the romantic, Tom."

"I never claimed to be a romantic." Harry listened with half an ear as his lover seemed to hesitate between going back inside or extracting the massage he was promised, he guessed. He guessed wrongly. "You're seeing something, aren't you?"

"Yes," he confessed and squinted slightly while putting his half empty tumbler down onto the wooden seat. "Something's wrong. I just don't know what yet..."

As if hesitant to do so, Tom sat back down and watched the stars at well, even though he had no clue as to how one could read their signals. Harry did though, and he didn't like what was revealed. He double-checked just to be sure, but the signs were quite clear. He would have to check his crystal ball to see exactly what was happening, but he felt quite certain he didn't have time for that.

"I must get back to Britain," he stated, tearing his frantic eyes away from the sky to meet those of his beloved. "At once!"

* * *

Harry had packed in a flurry, probably forgetting to take many paraphernalia he would miss after a handful of days away from home. But he hardly cared about that. Something was wrong with his family, and he had to hurry. The readings of chance were shifting very quickly, far more quickly than was normal, which often meant fate was involved. Now, as he was quite certain no one was about to give birth, although he couldn't know for sure as he hadn't been in touch with his people in a while, he was very frightened _death_ had something to do with it.

So he hurried.

Now, he had very few options as for how to travel from one continent to another. Harry was a very powerful wizard, one of the few in the world who had had a change in eye colour, but even he did not have enough strength to Apparate across the globe. He could use Apparition to jump from country to country, but it would get him very worn out in the end, and it would probably take the entire night. However, the other option would take even longer as he would have to travel to the Chinese Ministry of Magic to buy a Portkey, and even then he would only get as far as Tehran in Iran, or possibly Moscow in Russia, as Portkeys could only take you so far before their magic ran out. And then, he'd be forced to go through the process at least one more time to make it to Britain – it just wasn't worth it. As that not only could but _would _take hours with all the bureaucracy, which didn't leave him much choice but to use Apparition. Unless he wanted to fly on a broomstick the entire way – a ridiculous notion as it wouldn't only be lethally cold but also extremely time-consuming.

So he Apparated.

By five a.m. the 13th of August 1970 he arrived in Godric's Hollow. He had hurried as best he could, taking as few breaks to rest as possible, making the biggest leaps he could subject to the restriction of only being able to go where he had already been before, as he didn't have the time to gather photographs which would have been able to make him travel via a more direct route.

But even though he did his best, everything that he could to make it, it wasn't enough. He was too late.

His deep red travelling cloak, which was much thicker than the silk one he favoured in the hot climates of China, billowed behind him over his black slacks, dragon-hide boots and dark blue cardigan. The gravel under his soles _crunched_ as he walked up the short path up to the front door of the familiar old Potters' Cottage. He rapped on the door, but just walked in after a couple of breathless seconds.

"Mum! Dad!" he called out and pedalled restlessly on the doormat just inside the doorway. "Anybody home?" he shouted in a louder voice when he didn't get an immediate answer, whereafter he kicked off his boots, tossed his cloak over a lone Windsor chair in the corner of the hall and started to ascend the staircase before he was interrupted by a quiet call from behind him.

"Harry? What are you doing here?"

The younger man whipped around and pelted down the steps to grab a hold of his father's very stiff shoulders. His curly, black and grey hair was thinning out, his pale skin was deeply wrinkled and his square glasses, who had been through so much in both wartime and peacetime, had seen better days. But the man who wore them still had a proud posture, and his cheeks were completely clear of stubble. His once so brilliantly sparkling, dark blue eyes were, however, not very focused and a bit blurry with moisture.

"Dad, what's wrong? Are you alright?" Harry demanded while looking very intently into the eyes of his father, which were looking back but almost through him, as if they didn't see him properly.

"Oh, me? Fine, just fine."

"And Mum?" Harry insisted, instantly catching the twitch the older man did at the mention of his wife. "What is it, where is she?"

Walter cast a quick glance to the staircase, and Harry immediately caught on, taking the steps two at a time as he flew upstairs with his father thundering on behind him, trying to stop him.

Without pause, he flung the door of his parents' bedroom open and swept into the shaded room, and completely choked up once he reached the bedside and took in the sight before him.

"Harry no, wait! You can't just rush in! Don't disturb her!"

"Mum?" Harry leaned in towards his mother's puffy face, noting the sickly shade of green to her pockmarked skin, as well as the purplish bruises all the way along her neck. "She's not breathing," he whispered brokenly, reaching out a hand towards her to feel for a pulse, but his hand was snatched away by his frantic looking father.

"STOP! You are not allowed, you must wait! They said so! The Healers are on their way, they told us to wait!"

Harry tried to break free with gentle movements, his eyes never leaving the still form of his mother. "This is Dragon Pox, Dad, there must be something I can do to stop it. Has she taken potions? Has she received help? Why is she..." He noticed a flask on the bedside table, the label reading: _Dragon Pox cure_. It was nearly empty – only a little splatter of clear purple in the bottom of it. "She's not immune to it, is she? I mean, it's nearly impossible, but... Why didn't anyone check? Didn't you see the signs? Why didn't anybody do anything? Why... There must be something I could do!"

Walter did his best to pull his youngest son away from Nicole's still body, but with little success. "Harry, we can't be here. She's contagious. The Healers told me we have to stay away from the body."

"The body?" Harry echoed in a childishly uncomprehending tone, backing away slowly as the realisation finally sunk in. She wasn't breathing. She wasn't waking up.

The hands pulling at him sunk away as Walter broke down in desperate sobs. The two of them stood like that for a long moment, just watching the lifeless body in the soft covers, letting tears run freely down their cheeks without even noticing.

The stillness was broken when, before Harry could stop him, his father flung himself onto the bed and crawled up to his wife, shaking her shoulders violently. "Nicky? Nicky, honey?... Please, _please_! You need to wake up!" He was crying openly, snot was running freely from his nostrils and his voice was shivering so much it was difficult making out what he mumbled about. But soon enough, the tone got louder, and he screamed. "Please! Please, wake up! Nicky, Nick, don't leave me here... no, please, no, no, no!"

Forcing himself out of his wretched stupor, Harry sprang forwards and forcefully pulled his father away from his dead wife and out of the room. He didn't stop there, but dragged him down the stairs and into the living room, where he firmly pushed him down into one of the old, wine-red couches.

The 75 year old wizard was hysterical, sobbing and shaking, pulling at his hair and rocking back and forwards. All Harry could do was put his arms around him, comfort him as best as he could while they waited for the appointed Healers to arrive, so that they could clear up what he already knew.

That he had been too late. That there was nothing to be done.

That Nicole Potter was dead.

* * *

Silence. Stillness. Solemnity.

Harry lay in his childhood room, in his small bed, and stared into the moonlit wall. The day had passed in a blur, full of tearful moments with his father and brother, long hours at the hospital, a quiet dinner in the kitchen downstairs.

But now, Harry was alone. The other two had fled. But he had stayed.

The empty house rang of oppressive silence.

Despite being warned by a soft, golden glow around the ring on his left hand, Harry started violently when there was a sudden, muffled _crack_ next to the bed. Clad in heavy, black robes stood Tom, who looked around with open surprise. He put his trunk down and stared down at his partner's lying form with dawning realisation.

"Who?" he murmured while shrugging out of his cloak, and then his robes. He kicked off his boots and started to unbutton his shirt as Harry struggled to make his dry throat work.

"Mum," he croaked out, and Tom momentarily halted in his movements, before continuing to undress. Then, he waved his wand to enlarge the bed. Harry felt it shift but didn't move an inch. He felt Tom's chilled body crawl up against his back before a couple of strong arms wrapped themselves around him. He still didn't move, but his throat was clenching painfully, his heart was stinging, and his breathing became laboured.

A pair of warm, soft lips pressed down on the side of his neck, just below his ear. After a still moment, more feather-light kisses followed suit, and Harry lost all control. He crumbled together in deep sorrow and wept, safe in the knowledge he didn't have to be strong any more. He wasn't alone. Tom would take care of him.

* * *

"... I can't... I can't wear this... It's not right... I'll change."

"Harry," Tom said with a long suffering sigh from his seated position on the enlarged bed of Harry's childhood bedroom. "You look fine, you don't have to change again."

"No, no, it's alright, I'll just..." He ripped through the travelling trunk placed next to his wardrobe, searching for that right garment that would be _proper_. "... I can't wear a green tie to a funeral. I'm supposed to be in black, right? It's got to be black... why didn't I bring my tie? I'm so _stupid_!"

Spotting a silky, black fabric, he hastily pulled it loose and sighed deeply when he recognised it.

"There you go," said Tom, standing up to brush off his black trousers and then reaching out a beckoning hand towards his partner. "Come here, let me help you with that."

"This is a bow-tie," Harry whispered. "I can't wear a bow-tie to my mum's funeral. It's like saying it's a silly matter. I need to be serious, grown up. I can't have a _bow_ around my neck."

Tom sighed, very deeply, and then loosened his own black tie and slung it around Harry's neck instead. "Here, you can have mine. I'll wear the bow-tie."

Harry fumbled with the tie nervously, sniffing against the thickness in his nose and wiping at his endlessly moist eyes.

"Come on."

They moved slowly through the otherwise empty home and toed into their carefully polished dress shoes before exiting through the front door and down the short gravel path towards the streets. Harry felt his right hand being grasped in a firm grip, and he was being led towards their destination, which was good because he could barely see anything through his blurred vision.

The sound their shoes made against the ground changed into a more poignant _crunch_, and Harry realised they'd arrived at the small church of Godric's Hollow. In front of its porch stood a small gathering of people, all clad in sombre black. When they got closer, and after he had wiped at his eyes again, he recognised most of them as his relatives.

They greeted him carefully and he greeted them back, quietly. The first ones to come up to him were his cousin Charlus and his wife Dorea, both of them just as healthy and handsome as they had been 25 years ago. Harry was held in a warm embrace by Charlus, and felt himself choke up in shivering misery once the comfort of a kind presence pressed itself onto him. He hugged back briefly before straightening and, once more, wiping at his leaking eyes.

"How are you?" Dorea asked with a worried frown, and Harry couldn't help but laugh a little.

"No, no I'm fine, considering." They all nodded in uncomfortable understanding. "How are things with you?"

"Oh, we're fine. Just fine," Charlus assured him, as if he didn't want to draw too much attention to himself. "You... where was it that you lived now, I've lost track."

"China, we've been living in Lóng cháo for... for about six months now..." Harry shot an uncertain look at Tom, who nodded encouragingly at him. "I've been working as a full-time Healer... It's a lot of work."

"Yes I've heard," Charlus said in toned down excitement. "You've made quite a name for yourself – well, _both_ of you. What is it, you're combining traditional healing techniques with... Necromancy, was it?"

"Yes," Harry confirmed, so distracted by the conversation his eyes had finally stopped watering. "Well, last Wednesday, I resurrected a couple of feet."

"Feet?" Dorea asked in humoured surprise.

Harry smiled shakily, but was interrupted from continuing by the arrival of more people. Charlus and Dorea's son, Daniel. Behind him came his sweet, dark eyed wife Bonnie Potter, nee Applebee, leading the newest addition to the family by the hand: four year old Lora Potter.

They all exchanged their pleasantries, before Harry hunched down in front of the shy little girl, who tried her best to hide behind her mother's robes. "Hello Lora," he said and smiled a smile that he hoped was friendly and not simpering. "You've grown so much. How old are you now, three?"

The little girl shook her head violently, making her shoulder-length, black locks of hair bounce around her. Harry was almost floored by how similar to her namesake she was at that moment, although she had her mother's dark eyes and skin, rather than the fair complexion and blue eyes of Charlus' sister. She was utterly adorable.

"I'm four," she chirped in outrage and crinkled her eyebrows, making Harry hold his hands up in defeat.

"I'm so sorry, four, of course. Wow, four years already, huh?" He stood up to address her parents instead. "They grow up fast, don't they?"

Time passed as he greeted the tearful friends of his mother, some of them from work, others from the sewing circle she had been a faithful member of. He also greeted his mother's Muggle brother, Louis Bird, with wife, children and grandchildren. Then, there were few inhabitants of Godric's Hollow who had come to pay their respects as well: old Miss Bagshot, Mr and Mrs McGonagall and the oldest in the Linwood family. Thankfully, in Harry's opinion, his strange second cousin Lambert had refrained from showing up.

Closest to the church doors stood his father and old Aunt Katherine, who now lived in Harry's late Grandmother Arabella Potter's old home in Godric's Hollow, which was also where Walter had stayed for the last couple of days to escape his own home. Charlus and Dorea had taken over the old house in Little Hangleton, and Daniel and his family had bought a new house close by in the same village. Harold, on the other hand, still lived in Godric's Hollow with his own family, also in a new house that he had mostly built himself.

The two elders stood close together, the witch supporting the openly miserable wizard, and exchanged pleasantries with Harry and Tom for a short while. Then, the late arrivals showed up.

Harold pushed through the crowd and came straight towards them, wrapping Harry into a crushing embrace once he reached them. All control immediately slipped away for the both of them, and their emotions were flooding over, making them weep on each other's shoulders like a couple of small children. When they finally pulled away, they were both reluctant to let go of each other's shoulders.

"Tom," Harold said in a very thick voice and twisted his lips into a grimace that was probably supposed to be a smile.

Tom nodded once at him with a stony expression. "Harold, my condolences."

The older wizard nodded back and breathed out shakily. "Thank you."

Harry was once again embraced, this time by his sister-in-law: Keylee Potter, nee Emmett. Little had he suspected that the kind and supporting Quidditch Captain from his youth would one day become the wife of his brother – or, more accurately, his own grandmother.

From behind her, Harry caught sight of his hazel eyed little nephew. "Uncle Harry!" ten year old James Potter exclaimed and attached himself onto his right side in a fierce hug. "Are you sad too? Dad's been crying all night."

Harry smiled weakly and ruffled the already messy hair affectionately. "We're all sad, kiddo. Aren't you?"

The young boy hid his face in the black robes in front of him, but nodded his agreement.

Once everyone had arrived, they all moved to the appointed burial spot in the graveyard and came to a stop in a circle around the polished, walnut coffin on front of the tombstone. Engraved in it, below the symbol of a small bird, stood in curled letters:

_Nicole Potter_

_Born: 1897_

_Died: 1970_

They all stretched out their lit up wands towards the walnut chest, the children and Muggles their naked hands, and the ceremony started. Harry watched through blurry eyes as golden magic swirled through the air around the coffin as their Latin murmurings mixed into a quiet hymn. One by one, they stepped forwards and placed one white rose each onto the lid of life's last bed. When all of them were done, the chest started hovering before descending through the grass and into the ground. As it disappeared from sight, the lazy swirls of magic sped up into a miniature tornado, before fading away into the air.

The only ones powerful enough to have seen the spectacular sight were Harry and Tom, but every grown up sorcerer in attendance knew that the magic had been present, blessing the grave and Nicole's body from all potential harm. It would be left in peace.

The lights of the wands went out, and the ceremony was over.

* * *

_A/N: Hope you enjoyed the first chapter, although it was a bit sad. I realise the Potter family connections can be a little confusing, so I will publish a family tree on my author's page if you want to have a look. _

_On a much, much happier note, the wonderful and sweet smilingcrescent has painted an amazing piece for By Your Side. It is a beautiful painting of Tom, Harry and Mort. Check it out on my author's page and give our sweet artist lots and lots of love. _

_Thank you for reading!_

_Mischief managed!_

_(P.S. To _BlueAnchor_: Once again, you've managed to write an outstanding review that made me laugh and grin and laugh and grin. Yes, I do get the tingly magical feeling, right before posting the chapters. I'm pretty sure condoms have existed for a very long time, although not in plastic but other more or less convenient materials. I liked the new RST, like you said, the lyrics rang well with Tom's feelings. I feel really privileged to have a friend like you (although I can still not contact you privately and shower you with love *grumbles bitterly* One day!) If you ever decide to publish something, please, let me know. I'll be waiting! :) *returns your huge squishing hug* __Fairfarren! Oh yeah, about the "break a leg": it's considered bad luck for actors to wish each other good luck before entering the stage, so they started to wish each other bad luck instead, not to jinx each other. That's why it's called "break a leg".) _


	2. They're Acting Like They Want a Riot

**Never Again Victimized**

Disclaimer: I solemnly swear I do not own the published masterpiece of Harry Potter. I also do not write and publish this story to earn any sort of profit. I simply do it because I need to.

Claimer: I do, however, own and take full responsibility for this twisted story.

Beta read by Arithmancy Master.

Chapter Two

_They're Acting Like They Want a Riot_

* * *

Midnight in the graveyard was as cold and sombre as ever it had been. Golden swirls lit up the transparent form of a plump witch to make her emit an ethereal glow made of shimmering light. Behind her form stood her tombstone, its script still glossy and untouched by weather.

The wrinkled, lovely face gazed up at him with the deepest affection, mixed with a great sadness that resonated in his own chest. But there was also calm, contentment. The peace of finding closure.

"I miss you so much, Mum." The gasp rang loudly in the silence of the night.

Tiny flickers of a second passed before the sound made any sense to Nicole's dull senses. She lifted a pale hand up to his cheek, holding it there. Both of them ignored the fact that neither of them could feel the touch.

"Harry," she said in a distant and monotone voice. "There was never anything you could have done, you must realise that. It was my time."

He swallowed thickly, but nodded. It stung, terribly, but he knew it was true. "I know. I'm sorry."

The hand fell away, and her thick, white hair flew around her form in lazy swirls, as if underwater, when she shook her head. "I love you, my sweet child. I always thought of you as my own son. You know that, don't you, Harry?"

"Yes, of course," Harry hurriedly assured her in a thick voice. "And I've thought of you as my own mother."

Nicole's dull eyes were shimmering with warm emotion, but her expression was sombre as she spoke the next words. "This must be our farewell, Harry. Coming back... it was not easy. You must understand... that you have to let me move on. I am so very tired, Harry, I will not return after this... Let me rest at last."

Harry's eyes blurred up, and he fought desperately to stay cohesive. "Yes, yes of course. I understand. I'm sorry, I know... It can't be easy. I promise, I just wanted to... I just needed to see you one last time."

The warm smile was back on his mother's face, and again, one of her hands came up to rest on his flushing cheek. "It must be that way, Harry. You must understand, this is the way of the world. I am truly grateful to have seen you this last time, but now you must let me go."

She was still smiling softly as the golden swirls carried her away, and her son stood stock still as the hand on his cheek shimmered out of existence along with the rest of her body.

And she was gone.

He took a deep breath of the chill night air and closed his eyes for a moment, before blinking the moisture away from them and sweeping them over the line of tombstones in front of him. Four graves, five loved ones. In front of him, his mother's grave. Next to hers, that of Uncle Leonard, who rested next to his young daughter, Lora. A few paces away, next to a couple of older graves belonging to Potters Harry had never known, was the shared grave of Grandfather James and Grandmother Arabella, who had seen ten more years without her husband before coming to rest.

Harry missed her just as badly as his own mother. But however hard he wished to see her again, she would not answer to his callings. There was nothing left for her here now. She had moved on.

Clenching his fist, he felt the solidity of the cold Resurrection Stone push against his plush flesh. He had used it, once more, even though he knew he shouldn't. Returning to the world of the living didn't seem to be a pleasant experience for the ones who had crossed over. Calling them back was harsh and selfish, he knew. He had felt he couldn't help it. But now, with deep clarity, he knew he had to stop. If not for the sake of his loved ones, then for his own. For his own sanity. He had to stop.

With one last lingering glance at his mother's tombstone, he walked down the gravel path in calm strides, listening to the _crunch_ against his boots and steeling his resolve to give the ring back to its owner and never ask for it ever again.

It was time to let the dead rest in peace.

* * *

"Are you sure you can't stay? At least for a couple of days?"

Tom corrected his robes in front of the hallway mirror and dusted off the shoulders with the help of his bare hands. "Entirely sure."

"But one day, then?" Harry pleaded quietly, leaning casually against the doorway leading to the kitchen. Tom shot him an impatient look and he sighed in resignation. "An hour?"

Harry watched with a smug expression as an involuntary half-smile crept its way onto his partner's stony face. However, it didn't make him stay, for the next moment he was walking over to his slumped form, where he stopped and pecked him slowly on the lips. "I am expected. And my Portkey will not wait for me."

"Fine," Harry grumbled bitterly and resolutely slung his hands around Tom's neck to give him a parting kiss he hardly would forget.

The feeling of their warm lips meeting was familiarly pleasant, but Harry took care to make it as unfamiliar as possible, so that his obstinate partner would regret leaving for China without him.

Tom did indeed seem a little regretful once they parted ways, but he left nonetheless. Harry watched him walk out the front door of the Potters' Cottage, through the garden gate and along the slim road towards the forest edge, where he could use his Portkey without being seen.

When he was completely out of sight, Harry took a deep breath and tried to convince himself he was a grown up wizard who was fully capable of taking care of himself, and then closed the door with finality.

The rest of the day was a solemn affair, which Harry spent doting on his father; cooking for him, cleaning the house, and doing the laundry. As the next morning dawned, he felt desperately confined and resolved to get out of the depressed home for the rest of the day, if possible. So after making sure his sleeping father had everything he might need and leaving a short note on his bedside table, Harry donned his cloak and bolted.

Outside on the plain street of the Hollow, he came to a faltering halt and contemplated his options, dilly-dallying between seeking out solitude or company. Before he could decide, someone walked straight into him with a shout of surprise, followed by slightly wheezy giggles from the region of his midsection. Looking down, he spotted a crumpled old lady.

"Miss Bagshot!" he exclaimed, grasping her shoulders to steady her. "I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking. Are you alright?"

The old witch coughed and leaned onto her walking stick – a rough, but polished, wooden branch full of knots and turns – while blinking up at him with dark brown eyes that seemed to glimmer like jewels. Her white hair was tied into a tight knot and her tiny body was clad in heavy looking, brown robes made out of rich wool, leather and stiff linen. She grinned at him with a mouth full of yellowing, but healthy, teeth.

"Oho!" she exclaimed, looking pleasantly surprised to see him. "What are the chances? Harry Potter – just who I was looking for. What a day!"

Harry raised his eyebrows in wonder. "Really?"

The old witch seemed to sober up and her posture straightened slightly, so that her eyes were now level with his chest rather than stomach. "How is your father? Not too bad, I hope?"

Still bewildered, but opting not to show it, Harry nodded minutely. "He won't leave the bedroom... It's difficult right now, for all of us. But at least we can take care of each other."

Miss Bagshot pierced him with a hawk-like gaze and made small clucking sounds in her throat before smacking her mouth open. "Death is such a terrible thing." She patted him awkwardly on the arm and smiled very carefully.

"Yes, I agree," Harry murmured. "It's terrible."

The old lady's gaze seemed to intensify, and remarkably, for a moment she looked like the cat that got the cream. Then in the blink of an eye, the look was gone. "Isn't it just? Mind you look after each other, alright. And don't be a stranger!" she said in a much lighter voice and started to move away. "Do come by for a cup of tea sometime, lad, whenever you feel like it. There is something I need to tell you, but it can wait."

She gave a short wave before turning back around and continuing down the street towards her own little cottage in her slow and crooked gait. Harry watched her go with wonder, dead curious about what she wanted to tell him, but he recognised a dismissal when he saw one.

Mind on other things, Harry made it to his Apparition point in the shrubbery behind the house and didn't pay much attention to where he headed to. When he appeared in the forest of Little Hangleton, he was a little bewildered, but simply shrugged and made his way to the well-kept mansion housing the Riddle family, figuring he might as well as it had been at least nine months since his last visit. He trekked out of the mossy clearing, through the thick branches of sharp fir needles, which his magic obediently hurried to bend away so that they would not to sting him, and onto the newly paved country road. A small, grey moth had stuck onto his red cloak, and he gently brushed it away before disrobing so that he would look a little more Muggle.

In their younger days, Harry and Tom had seldom bothered to change their attire when headed for Little Hangleton. It was such a small town, and even if a handful of Muggles happened to see them, they hadn't thought very much of their strange clothing once realising they associated with the wealthy and influential Riddle family. They had just taken it for some strange new fashion for the rich.

That was in the 1940's and 50's, however, and as the times had changed and as the differences between the social classes were less pronounced in the Muggle world, dressing properly had become far more important, even in little towns such as this one.

Sure enough, as Harry walked the country road up to the polished mansion with its manicured lawns and pedantically cut yew bushes, he had to nod to Mr and Mrs Hall who rode past him in their small, bright green car. Entering the grounds through the open gates he also greeted young Frank Bryce, the old and now retired butler Bryce's nephew, who worked for the Riddle family as a gardener. As it was, he was one of the very last of their employees, as the times had changed and having servants was no longer proper, even for a noble family. In these times, people were entitled to have a life outside of servitude, which changed how things were being handled even in a small town such as Little Hangleton.

There were still a few people working at Riddle Manor, such as the gardener and a cleaning lady. However, they were all employees with the weekends off and their own houses to go home to at the end of the day. There were also stable personnel running about, mending, training and competing with the horses. But they were employed through the family business in these times and not directly through Lord Riddle himself.

The next person Harry ran into, however, was not so casually greeted and then dismissed. In the paddock next to the well-kept stables, housing about twelve well-bred horses, he spotted the tall and handsome little urchin Mort. Well, not so little any more, he had to confess. He had just turned 25 this July, only four days before Harry's own birthday, but to him it seemed like it was only yesterday he carried the young man around on his shoulder in baby form.

But the baby had grown, first into a silent little toddler, then into a devious little boy who never wanted anybody to touch him, let alone make him do anything whatsoever if he had not already planned to do it. Then came the brooding teenage years during which Harry seriously feared for his own sanity. It had been a constant roller-coaster of doubt as to whether he had made the right choice or not, if it had been wise to give Voldemort a second chance or if it would all come back to bite him in the ass one day. Somehow, they had made it through the storm and reconciled one dark November night when suddenly, Mort stood on Harry's doorstep in Germany, having travelled all the way from Britain by ship and then train. The Muggle way. That had been nearly seven years ago, and ever since then, Mort had finally accepted him as a father figure.

Growing up, Mort had only had his grandfather as a constant presence in his life, and thus as much as he might have wanted to rely on Harry, he simply wasn't there enough to count on. But they had made it through, and today, Harry was proud to say he truly looked upon the young man as his own son, and he also knew Mort saw him as a father, although they technically were godson and godfather to one another.

Moreover, Harry wasn't the only one entitled to the position of a father in Mort's life – in fact, he had competition from the boy's grandfather and from his own lover. Tom, however, neither had nor would ever acknowledge any form of relation to his supposed son. Mort, although he did recognise Tom as his _father_, was just as cold back.

Lord Riddle, however, was as close to a real father as Mort had ever got in his childhood, and was always referred to as _Papa_ by his grandson. Harry, for his part, was called _Dad_, upon his own insistence and Mort's reluctant consent.

Thereof, the oblivious former Dark Lord had grown up with one Father, one Papa and one Dad. On the other hand, he had also grown up completely without a maternal figure. Even though he had become slightly attached to his nursemaid in his earliest years, those feelings had soon dissipated as soon as the Muggle's services had come to an end and she had made leave from the manor, not looking back once, whereafter Mort had never so much as mentioned her again.

No, women hadn't seemed to interest him for the longest of time. Remembering how Tom had acted around their female peers in their younger years, before his own influence had made his stubborn partner see reason, Harry worried a great deal about it. But that was before Mort had met one Jaye Hindley...

Coming up to the wooden gate leading into the paddock, Harry leaned casually against it and called out to attract attention to himself. "What, too busy to welcome your wayward dad back from around the globe? No hug?"

Mort immediately hauled his shiny brown mare in to a complete halt from his very controlled gallop, and it threw its head upwards at the abrupt halt as its rider slid down from the saddle and commanded for it to, "_stay_".

Harry noticed his godson's usually slicked back strands of black hair had become tussled, a few strands disobediently sliding down towards Mort's dark green eyes. They looked at each other for a moment, before the older hung his cloak over the fence and passed through the gate into the paddock, while the younger came forwards in sure, slightly hurried strides. They met half-way in a fierce hug, Harry holding on with a stark grin as the other started squirming in the hold; just like Tom, he was not the cuddly sort.

Reluctantly, feeling a sharp sting in his chest as he realised how much he had missed his godson, Harry let go in favour of looking the young man over – taking great delight in seeing how healthy and happy he looked. "It's so good to see you," he said warmly and gave Mort's shoulder a light squeeze. "It has been much too long."

"Well, that is hardly my fault, is it?" Mort answered in a quiet voice, smirking lightly. "Really Dad, nine months?"

"It's been too busy," Harry offered as an apology, wrapping his stiff godson into another warm embrace. "But you can't accuse me of not writing. When we were in Romania it was alright, but the owls take a long time to fly all the way from China."

With a great sigh, Mort momentarily clenched him back, and then pulled away forcefully. "You're stifling me."

Harry gave a throaty chuckle and gave him a playful shove. "You're one to speak, when you reek of horse."

"I do not," Mort answered at once from between thin lips, sneering as he seemed to contemplate something for a moment. "I need a bath," he then admitted under his breath, ignoring his dad's wide grin. "Why don't you wait for me in the house while I finish up here?"

Harry agreed to those terms and watched as Mort commanded the horse to follow him as he stalked away to the stables, pulling his riding gloves off in the process. Near the long stone building a young woman met him, possibly one of the employed stable girls, as she instantly took care of the horse.

Backtracking out of the paddock, snatching his cloak up on the way, Harry walked the long gravel path up to the front porch of the very familiar Riddle Manor. It had been repainted, into a warmer hue of crème white, just a couple of years ago. The west wing had been renovated also but, despite this, the entire house still felt like home to Harry who had spent much of his youth in this house together with Tom and his father.

Of course, all those years ago, a wrinkled old butler would have opened the front porch for him even before he'd even get the time to knock. But these were other times, and no one met Harry as he knocked thrice on the door, stepped into the hallway and hung his red cloak onto the handsome iron coat rack stand.

At first, everything was eerily quiet, but then Harry heard a loud shriek and a shuffling of tiny feet on the carpeting upstairs. Looking up, he caught sight of the end tails of flowing blue skirts as a tiny person disappeared into the first floor sitting room, shouting "Mummy! Mummy! There's a man downstairs!" in a very slurred and high pitched voice.

Smiling to himself, the man made way up the wide staircase, followed the sound of voices when on the second landing, and knocked softly on the door frame before he entered the sitting room.

"May I come in?" he asked softly, making the room's three inhabitants immediately turn their identical pale blue eyes onto him. Jaye Riddle, Mort's 25 year old wife, and little Pearce and Meredith; the first five, the second three years old.

"Look, children, it's Uncle Harry," Jaye explained in a soft voice from her seated position in one of the couches. In her lap clung her frightened looking daughter, apparently too shy to dare make contact with him yet, but the older boy Pearce seemed to recognise him and scurried closer with a mask of confidence plastered onto his pale face.

Harry was strongly reminded of how Mort had looked and behaved at that age, sporting a cool exterior with that handsome face of his, even so young. Pearce looked a lot like him, although his colouring was wrong, with the blue eyes and chestnut brown hair of his mother. Little Meredith looked the same, her shoulder length wavy hair also brown, her wide doe eyes a startling blue colour reminding Harry of ice.

He bent down in front of the short boy, smiling kindly at him as he came to a halt right in front of him. Cautious, perhaps, but frightened he was not. "Hello Pearce," Harry said, "do you remember me?"

"Yes, sir," the boy answered quietly but steadily, "you came for my birthday. And you gave me the book about the dragons."

"I did," Harry confirmed with a fond smile, wrapping young Pearce into a soft embrace that made the little one's eyes go round as saucers. Apparently, he wasn't used to receiving hugs as a form of greeting. As the older pulled away, the boy was blushing and tried vainly not to meet his eyes, which made Harry's insides completely melt into a soft pile of goo. "Please call me Harry, Pearce. We're family after all."

The beet red little boy nodded his acceptance as Harry got to his feet, striding towards the now standing mother with her shy little girl on the hip. Jaye smiled kindly at him as he approached, but went quite rigid as she also received a warm hug from their visitor. Apparently, Harry mused, the people in this family wasn't very physical with their affection for each other.

_Must be Mort's doing_, he thought to himself, _His Lordship has always dished out hugs and kisses whenever possible, if Tom is to trust in the matter_. That things was a little stiff at first when they hardly knew one another, Harry could understand, but he had met Jaye many times before. She never seemed to warm up to him. Not completely. _Or maybe it isn't Mort's doing, but hers_, he pondered as he pulled away and forced a smile onto his face.

"Jaye, it's so good to see you. You look well. And hello there, little Meredith. Too shy to say hello?"

The little girl just burrowed her face deeper into the crook of her mother's neck and didn't answer.

"Oh, well," Jaye breathed out, twisting her lips into a smile also, which made tiny dimples appear right at the corners of her mouth. "It is good to see you too. You were gone for so long, we started to wonder about you."

"Oh, yes," Harry quickly said in an apologetic tone, "wasn't all that planned for, this absence... It's been very busy, you see. But I never meant for you to worry." There was a short silence during which everyone just looked at each other, except for Meredith, who stubbornly snuggled her face into her mother's shoulder and wouldn't look at anyone.

Then, before it got entirely too awkward, Jaye seemed to snap out of her absent-minded state and looked him over with renewed vigour. "Very well, now you're here. Have you seen Mort? I think he went to the stables."

"Yes, I met him on the way up here, down in the paddock. Er, he was just about to come back up. Just wanted to freshen up, also," Harry hurriedly said, feeling a little out of balance. For some reason, the atmosphere was pushing down on him, as if he'd stepped right into a very sensitive situation without knowing anything about it. Ridiculously, it made him want to open up all the windows to get some fresh air in.

"Well," Jaye breathed out with another smile of dimples. "I can't imagine he feels very fresh if he's been riding those horses. He might take a while, then – would you like to see Tom? He's in his study. It's just down the hall."

"Yes, yes I know," Harry assured her with some amusement, knowing his way around Riddle Manor, possibly better than even she did. "How is he?"

"Oh, just fine, just fine," the young woman said, rocking her daughter up and down as she gazed down on her fondly. "And I think it's just about napping time for this little lady. Pearce, you too."

"But Mum," the little boy exclaimed in a whiny tone of voice. "I'm not sleepy!"

"Pearce," Jaye demanded with a stern glare at her son, who crossed his arms and clenched his jaw in defiance.

Harry couldn't help but smile at how similar to his young father he looked in that moment. "It's quite alright for him to come with me, if he'd like," he stated in a sure voice, looking down to meet eyes with startling blue. "Would you like that, Pearce?"

The little boy sprang forwards at once and attached himself to Harry's side, looking up at his mother pleadingly. "Yes, please Mum, can I?"

Jaye seemed a tad bit reluctant, but yielded with a quiet little sigh. From over her half-way turned shoulder, little Meredith peeked out with thumb in mouth, steeling a curious look at the mysterious uncle she didn't recognise. She dove back down once she realised the man was looking back at her.

"Yes, of course you can," the young woman said with a tiny smile, "as long as you do not disturb Grandpa Tom and Uncle Harry. I'm sure they have much to talk about." With one last look back at her guest, Jaye walked out the door and disappeared down the corridor to put her little girl to bed.

"Uncle Harry?" Pearce said shyly as soon as they were alone.

"Yes?"

A soft sigh, and then: "I've missed you."

Harry's chest churned in warm feelings, and he couldn't stop himself from ruffling the neatly arranged nest of brown hair so conveniently close to his left hand. "I've missed you too, Pearce," he said and led the boy out of the room and down the corridor, towards the study where His Lordship usually spent his days.

Knocking on the dark wooden door, there was a quiet call for them to enter. Inside the study sat Tom Riddle Senior, fiddling with sheets of paper which were lying in a heavy stack on the tabletop in front of him. The handsome Lord of Little Hangleton was grey haired and wrinkled, looking his 77 years, although there was a sparkle in his dark green eyes that made him seem far more youthful than he truly was. His weathered face broke out in a wide grin as he caught sight of his visitors.

"Whom have you got there, Pearce? I do not believe my own eyes!"

Harry chuckled and strode up to the old man, who arose from his chair and met him in a crushing embrace. "My Lord!" he exclaimed warmly. "Are you telling me you're seeing things now? That can't be a good sign."

Lord Riddle pulled away with a brilliant grin. "I'm sure! Best I called my doctor."

Harry laughed openly and pulled away to meet eyes with his old father-in-law. "It's so good to see you."

"And you," the old man answered and slowly sank back into his seat, grimacing slightly as if feeling some discomfort.

"How's the leg?" the younger questioned as he sat down in one of the plush armchairs in front of the heavy oaken desk, smiling warmly as Pearce stepped up to him immediately, crawling up onto his lap with slight hesitation. Harry made sure to give him an encouraging squeeze as he wrapped his arms around the little boy, silently assuring him he could sit on his uncle's lap as much as he wanted. As a reward, the child relaxed completely and curled up in his arms, completely at ease.

"Ah, you have already got an admirer, I see," His Lordship said with a wide smile, but sobered up at the receiving end of the expectant look from his son-in-law. "The leg is fine, there is no need for a fuss. You have done a splendid job on it – I scarcely dared to hope I would ever be able to walk again, so a few cramps and aches are merely a drop of water in an endless sea."

A couple of years ago, after a long period of intense studying and preparation, Harry had started to rehabilitate Tom Riddle Sr. and his injury from the second world war. Magic didn't work as well on Muggles as it did on sorcerers as, for example, potions did nothing for a magicless body. You could not turn a Muggle into someone else through a Polyjuice Potion, you could not make them tell you the truth with Veritaserum, and you could not cure the common cold with Pepper Up Potion. But, you could throw spells at them, and alter their bodies. You could turn their hair blue, you could transfigure a pig's tail onto their backsides, and you could also, incidentally, bring life to dead body parts just as well on Muggles as on sorcerers. There were also some forms of magic trekking the thin line between potions and spells which could affect Muggles. Such as spells cast on food, or potions. If you confined a Nosebleed Hex in a glass of juice, for example, and made a Muggle drink it, he or she would then be affected by the spell.

With these restrictions, Harry had been able to heal Lord Riddle's legs and spine, where most of the problem lay. But, since he couldn't administer potions as a complement, the results could not be perfect. But, at least, they were nearly so. The old man could walk again and had need for neither a wheelchair nor an assistant to help him make his way. The only help he got nowadays was from his elegant, silver handled walking stick, which he only needed to use outside of the house. He also seemed to be faring well, despite the occasional pain in his left leg which complicated his condition a little.

With the necessary pleasantries out of the way, such as the usual report on what Tom was doing and why he wasn't there with him on this visit, and with a snoozing little boy in lap, Harry began a long report on how life had been in China.

Midway through an animated story of how Tom and he had ended up in the claws of a couple of hags one of the very few times they visited the local pub in Lóng cháo, the door to the study opened up to admit a newly bathed young man, dressed in pristine but casual clothes instead of the worn and dusty riding attire from earlier. He took in the scene in front of him with a cold look and gently closed the door.

"Have you told him?" Mort asked quietly, and Tom Sr. seemed to light up with an inner glow hearing those words.

"No, I gathered you might want to tell him yourself," the old man answered with a gentle hum, and Harry's interest was instantly piqued.

"Tell me what, pray tell?" he wondered with a frown, and felt Pearce stir awake and alert in his lap, turning exited blue eyes onto him.

"Oh, is it about –"

"Pearce," Mort interrupted warningly, making the excitement dim a little in the child's innocent expression. "I would like to be the one who tells him."

The five year old boy looked very disappointed, his stoic form turned distant in an instant, while his eyes blurred up with moisture, his cheeks becoming flushed. Harry made sure to rub his shoulders a little to lure back that wonderful sparkle he'd seen there in the child's expression before the interruption. "Now I'm getting really curious!" he exclaimed in a try to make the little one feel better, while looking up at Mort as he spoke.

His godson made a beckoning gesture at him and strode out the door, clearly expecting him to follow. Harry carefully scooted Pearce out of his lap, taking him by the hand as he left the study as well, giving a short nod to Lord Riddle's seated form, stuck once more behind his towering load of unfinished paper work.

Harry and Pearce walked hand in hand down the corridor towards the west wing, which housed most of the manor's bedrooms, following the positively bouncy steps of the man leading them. They all stopped in front of a seemingly random door, right next to the room Harry knew to be the one Mort shared with his wife, although he did still have his boyhood room as well. How often he used it, however, Harry had no clue.

They entered the dimly lit bedroom, its curtains drawn to create a softer light, and Harry instantly jerked in surprise as he took in the furnishing. In one corner, a heavy changing table, and in front of one of the windows, an old, wooden rocking chair where the young nanny Annabel sat rocking back and forth. And to her right, a cradle, decorated with soft pillowing and blankets.

The young Muggle promptly stood up as they all entered the room, and gave a short curtsey. "Mr Riddle, and Mr..."

"Potter," Harry said, smiling as Pearce tore out of his grip and hurried up to his nanny, hugging her around the knees once he reached her side. Mort watched dispassionately, clearly not approving of such gestures of affection, but also not forbidding them. "Harry Potter, we met about nine months ago, if I recall correctly."

"Yes, I remember, sir," Annabel answered kindly and patted Pearce on the head.

Harry smiled at her and curiously walked closer to the cradle. "How are you?" he asked her in passing, shooting her a quick glance before redirecting it at the mysterious stuffing and pillowing in front of him.

"Oh, I am well, thank you. This is all so exciting, with the little one as well. I feel really privileged to get to be here."

Harry watched with bated breath as Mort bent down and carefully picked up a small bundle of pale blue. Coming closer, he noticed a few tufts of black, silky hair on top of the baby's head, and as he opened his sleepy, blurred eyes, Harry's breath caught. They were dark green – the exact same shade that Tom had had when they were younger. The exact same shade Lord Riddle and Mort still shared.

Carefully stretching his hands out, the wizard silently asked for permission to carry the little one, and he was granted it at once. Cradling the small body close, unbidden flashbacks of Mort's childhood tore through his mind. They looked so alike, but Harry could already tell they would become very different in other aspects. For one, this little babe did not throw around glares at his surroundings, but seemed to all the world like a normal child.

"When did this happen?" Harry asked in wonder.

Mort straightened his back proudly, a light smirk curling his lips. "About two weeks ago. I was about to give in and tell you, but I did want to do it in person. You have been gone a long while, Dad."

"I have," Harry breathed out, looking deep into the baby's eyes, seeing him focusing back at him, being one of the few things close enough for his young eyes to take in. "Have you decided on a name yet?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact," Mort said in a voice that spoke of extreme anticipation, as if he dearly wanted his godfather's approval. "It will be Edgar _Harry_ Riddle."

A heavy lump formed itself in the older wizard's throat, and for a moment he thought his heart would stop beating. Slowly, as he started breathing again, his eyes became watery with burning moisture. "You're naming him after me?"

"We are," Mort said with firmly masked relief, "as Pearce is named after Papa, we thought it only fair." There was no need to mention that Pearce's middle name could just as well be derived from Mort's _father_ as well. It was gently ignored.

"He is beautiful," Harry breathed out.

"Quite so," the proud father agreed, basking in the obvious pleasure he saw in his godfather's expression. "Of course, it is only natural, as he resembles myself."

Harry chuckled lightly and gave the young man a fond smile, his dark red eyes warm like gleaming coals in a crackling hearth. "I agree," he said, also giving a thought to his own handsome partner.

"Well I think he's ugly," came a sudden exclamation from little Pearce, who wore a highly jealous expression, Harry noted as he turned his head to look his way. "He's all puffy and red faced."

"Pearce," Mort snapped in a deadly cold voice, and the small boy got his distant look back, his eyes watering, and this time he really seemed about to burst out in sobs, for his bottom lip was trembling dangerously.

"Oh my goodness me, Pearce, darling," Annabel exclaimed and picked him up into her arms, where he cuddled close and finally broke down in muffled sobs. "There there," he murmured, patting his back, "I think we better have a little napping time. Excuse us, sirs." And with another short curtsey, the nanny carried her load out of the room and carefully closed the door behind her.

Mort made a displeased clucking noise with his tongue and sent a mild glare at the closed door. "He can be such a little menace sometimes."

Harry couldn't help but look at the other in disapproval at that, feeling an unpleasant feeling clench his heart. "Mort, don't you see the boy is starved for attention? He's just a child, and you're treating him like a disobedient teenager."

The young man sent him a disinterested glance, opting for not showing any inner turmoil. But, as Harry knew those features as well as the back of his own hand, he wasn't fooled.

"He needs love and tender care," he continued in a softer tone, carefully laying the snoozing baby back into his cradle while Mort's stale expression slowly melted into an irritated sneer.

"It isn't easy," he claimed in a quiet voice, standing proud and tall, but averting his eyes to the side. "I'm not sure... how to do it."

Once again, like before in the living room with Jaye and the children, the atmosphere turned strange, and Harry had the distinct feeling that there was something beneath the surface somehow. That something had happened that he wasn't made aware of.

Tentatively, he walked over to his godson's rigid form and put a steadying hand upon his shoulder. "Is something the matter?" he murmured, feeling quite worried. The children seemed frightened, old Lord Riddle tired, Jaye restless and Mort himself seemed frustrated, if not bitter. Something obviously wasn't right.

"It just don't..." Mort began, but interrupted himself with a pained expression, struggling with himself. "I don't understand why I can't love them."

Harry's heart stung and he tightened his grip on the young man's shoulder. "You can't?"

With great effort, dark green eyes tore themselves from the carpet to look up at him, carrying great torment and fear. "I'm like _him_, aren't I? Like... my _father_. Papa tells me... he couldn't love me either."

Harry swallowed with difficulty, remembering all the complicated dramatics of how his godson came to be, fresh to the world with neither memories nor any magic to speak of. It was true there wasn't any fibre in Tom's body that loved his supposed son, in all his life, he had only ever loved two people: his own father, and Harry himself. But that Mort found himself unloving of his own children, who truly were his own, was surprising and quite discouraging. It brought back uncomfortable memories of another time, a time of pain and suffering, when Mort had been the most powerful Dark Lord ever to exist – completely disabled from feeling love, so distanced from it it brought physical pain to be in the mere presence of the feeling itself. So devoid of it, it could be used as a weapon against him. That that seemed to live on, even in a small quantity, was very discouraging indeed.

Feeling a great need to offer comfort, Harry wrapped the younger but slightly taller man into a warm embrace, squishing firmly to make sure his affection sank into the other's chest. "Mort, you don't have to worry," he said in a sure voice. "I know that Tom hasn't been... there for you." There was a quiet snort close to his ear where Mort's head rested, indicating what an understatement that had been. Harry closed his eyes and continued. "But you must understand things have been very complicated – and he is capable of love. So are you. Tell me, why are you so harsh on your children?"

"I can't help it," Mort confessed in an emotionless whisper. "They make me angry."

"And why is that?" Harry pressed on.

"Because..." There was a short pause as Mort licked his dry lips. "They misbehave. They aren't... doing what I want them to. They irritate me."

"Because you want them to do good?"

Little baby Edgar whined a little in his sleep, but didn't awaken, and soon the quiet filled the room once more. "I... perhaps," Mort whispered after a moment, sounding unsure.

"You are harsh because you care about them," Harry said firmly, trying to convince his godson of that fact. Even if it wasn't true, if Mort believed it himself, perhaps it could become true with a little time. "You want them to succeed and live a happy life. And –"

Suddenly, breaking the stillness in the bedroom, the magic around the ring on Harry's finger began to swirl like mad, and after a stunned moment of surprise, there was a soft _swoop_ and a swirl of robes, and just like that, Tom had appeared. He took in the room with momentarily bewildered eyes that shone glaringly red in the darkness, before they narrowed with open fury as they landed on Harry's form, still wrapped up in a close embrace with his godson.

They both pulled away, slowly, although Mort stubbornly kept one of his hands on Harry's right shoulder. Tom took a quick peek down into the crib, sneered with open disgust, and then stepped up so closely to his partner his furious pants of breath travelled onto Harry's face.

He didn't even have to ask. "Something happened," he concluded, and the answer was plain to see in Tom's cloudy expression.

The glaringly red eyes turned onto Mort's rigid form, and narrowed even further. "Get. Out." Tom spelled in a quiet hiss Harry identified as Parseltongue. If possible, the younger man's body seized up even further.

"How dare you?" he hissed in kind, grinding his teeth together.

Before a shouting match could break out, disturbing the sleeping baby, Harry decided it was his cue to interfere. "Tom," he exclaimed carefully, but forcefully. Thankfully, he instantly regained his partner's full attention. "Mind your surroundings. This is a nursery. Surely, this can be taken elsewhere."

With no further comment, Tom whipped around and stormed out the door, his swirling magic throwing it open with such force it made an awful racket, and little baby Edgar awakened with a loud shriek. With a short, apologetic look at his godson, Harry followed his rude parter out of the room and down the corridor. They both came to a full stop in front of the lone door at the end of the corridor, leading to Tom's old room. It was locked by magic, so that only Tom himself could open it, although why Harry had no clue – there wasn't anything in it. Not as far as he could remember at least.

Tom waved his yew wand with quick flicks, and as soon as the door clicked open, he stormed inside in a quick flurry. And Harry followed.

Just like he had remembered, the room was quite hollow with very little furniture and no belongings whatsoever. There was a grand bed with no bedding, an open wardrobe with no innards, an equally empty drawer and an old wooden chair in front of the empty writing desk. There were no carpets on the floor and no curtains framing the windows. And over the cold fireplace hung a muddy brown painting with _nothing_ in it.

Harry walked up to the frame and peered inside, befuddled, and barely reacted as the door to the room swung closed with a loud _bang_. In another swirl of golden, sparkling magic, all the dust vanished from the room. "Isn't this a little depressing?" he muttered. "Usually your paintings portray vivid pictures of death and carnage, and I always thought they were grim – but this is just... nothing. There's nothing in it."

"Don't be ridiculous," Tom snapped impatiently and forcefully turned him around with a grip on his shoulders. Then, a wrinkled letter was shoved into his face with no further comment. Harry accepted it in silence and read it at once. What it contained had him crying out in outrage.

"No! What, I don't... They can't possibly – who's this from? Aby? How is it... Are they _mad_?"

Tom sneered deeply and started to pace in front of him, like he always did when something troubled him greatly – which, admittedly, was quite often. Although this time, Harry couldn't deny it was well founded.

They were banning the Dark Arts.

The Wizengamot was voting for banning the Dark Arts in Britain. Not just the Unforgivables, which had been outlawed ever since 1717, but _all_ different kinds of dark magic.

Harry couldn't help it. For the first time in years, he couldn't even remember the last time it happened, his outrage was so great he went completely mental. Wand in hand, he started throwing curses at the innocent looking bed, making the stuffing in the mattress fly out and tear around the room as if there was a thunder storm.

When he was done, he simply undid it with a casual flick of his ivy wand, admitting to himself it had been quite pointless. But it had felt good. Very good. But now, he was just left with a deep sense of helplessness.

"This can't happen," he whispered brokenly, sinking down onto the abused mattress, which creaked unpleasantly with the sudden weight. Tom stopped and slowly turned to look at him. His face was cast into a stony mask, but underneath it, dark promise was boiling threateningly. "Tom, we have to do something."

A slow, angry smile curled Tom's lips, and he let out a short crackle. "Oh Harry, we are. This has gone far enough. We're interfering. We're moving back to Britain."

* * *

_A/N: Alright, so sorry for the delay, but this chapter was killing me. There's so much going on, as I'm sure you've noticed. Since this and the last chapter is a sort of prologue to the "real" story, hopefully the next chapters will be a lot easier to write. I hope I haven't bored you all with this endless foreshadowing, which is necessary but perhaps a bit... tedious? I promise, at least the next two chapters will be both livelier and less depressing. Hope you've enjoyed the reading nonetheless! _

_And thank you all for the wonderful reviews and all the support. It really is you guys who keep me going. If you lot wouldn't be here, I would be off writing other things (which I already do on the side, but probably a lot more). So, I'm really glad to have you by my side, and to get to experience this. So, thank you! _

_Oh yes, and also, you probably won't need it. But, if you are interested, there is now an additional family tree for the Riddle family on my author's page. (I really love doing those for some reason)_

_Mischief managed! _

_(P.S. To _BlueAnchor: _I am SO sorry for making you worry. It really kills me I can't contact you any other way than this. Please, consider creating a user on the page or perhaps send me your e-mail address? I'd be thrilled to get to have lengthier and deeper conversations with you. But, thank you for the wonderful reviews. They really helped take me through the storm of this messy chapter. Sorry for complicating things with the Chinese, haha xD I figured it'd create a certain mood for the chapter, as I also did it with Italian and Albanian in BYS. But, I made sure to write out explanations in the text after the lines, so it really wasn't anything complicated. This made me laugh, because it's so true: "__Finally something you can do better than Tom (other than making people extremely guilty)". Yes, yes James is Harry's dad. "they're becoming one of those 'old married couples'": that made me laugh too. XD Tom is denying it sooo fiercely, but we all know it's true. Oh, and I LOVED the little "Who is this BlueAnchor" dialogue you had going on. So meta! My brain decided to read it out in Eddie Izzar's voice as well, which was hilarious! Please, please tell me if you ever write anything or get an account on the site. Fairfarren! (RST: Crooked by G-Dragon. The music video is wonderful, and the song is really addictive. It's in Korean, but if you look at a translation, you see it's a very deep and interesting set of lyrics. I've been obsessed with it for about two weeks now.))_


	3. As the Siren Climbs Higher

**Never Again Victimized**

Disclaimer: I solemnly swear I do not own the published masterpiece of Harry Potter. I also do not write and publish this story to earn any sort of profit. I simply do it because I need to.

Claimer: I do, however, own and take full responsibility for this twisted story.

Beta read by Arithmancy Master.

Chapter Three

_As the Siren Climbs Higher_

* * *

The steady ticking of the grandfather clock hanging over the open fireplace made Harry restless. He sat in a very uncomfortable stool in front of a polished wooden desk, with a small golden sign on it, reading: _Rowan Bott, Chf. Healer, Order of Merlin, Second Class, Grand Sorc. _

Behind the desk sat a stern looking witch Harry recognised quite well, despite all the years that had passed since they last met – the graduation ceremony at Hogwarts, 25 years ago. They hadn't been friends, but Rowan had been very close with his cousin Lora at the time, and they had both belonged to Gryffindor.

She had changed of course, her brown hair seemed thinner, her cheeks and eye sockets more sunken in, and her face overall showing signs of age-lines and imperfections. But in other ways she was still very similar. She was still very thick set, with a muscular neck, and her posture was quite short but rod straight. The one thing that had changed the most, however, was the atmosphere around her which screamed of confidence. If she was to become Harry's new employer, he suspected that knowing her prior to this would not help him in any way.

They had introduced themselves, spoken briefly of what they'd been up to after finishing school, and Rowan had then sunken down into her unfairly plush desk chair to read through the wizard's files as a heavy silence filled the office. Only the sound of the clock's ticking could be heard, and it made Harry quite nervous. It was imperative that he obtained employment here at St. Mungo's – where else? He needed to stay in Britain for the time being, and he couldn't very well found his own clinic. He wouldn't have either the time or the resources. He wasn't poor by any means, but he wasn't made out of galleons either. And if he was forced to stand on his own feet, with the weight of the current political situation, as he was a Necromancer, chances were that people wouldn't dare to visit him, despite his good reputation.

So, he became more and more nervous by the second.

After much too long, the Chief Healer finally put the files away onto the tabletop and turned her attention back to him, leaning her elbows onto the desk and entwining her fingers together into a thoughtful posture. The employment interview could commence.

"Impressive," Rowan concluded in her deep voice, peering at him with extreme attentiveness, as if she expected him to do a back-flip or something as outrageous. Harry swallowed, ignoring the sole sweat drop that travelled along the side of his face and into his neckline.

"Thank you, er, Miss," he said a bit shakily, and to his mortification, a humoured smile split Rowan's face in two.

"No need for that," she stated in her stern voice, the smile gone just as quickly as it had appeared. "And it's Mrs, just for your information."

"Oh, forgive me, I just... Your name is still Bott, so I assumed," he hastened to explain before forcefully cutting himself off, knowing how he could make things worse for himself by blabbering once nervous. Some things never changed, and while he was confident most of the time, poise was another thing completely.

"Yes, Jeremiah and I decided to keep my family name, just because his Johnson derives from a Muggle family. I'm not from a grand family, and we thought it a pity if the name were to disappear altogether."

Rowan seemed like she wanted to keep her explanation short, as if she was a bit uncomfortable with the subject, which Harry could understand. Picking something magical over Muggle just to preserve something exclusive to the old Pure-blooded families wasn't something you wanted out in the open in these times, with so many outspoken Blood Purists lately, and the ever opinionated Muggleborns who became more and more agitated over the political situation of their social standing. The tension between the Blood Purists and the Blood Traitors was more pronounced than ever before, and it was understandable that the Head of St. Mungo's didn't want to get in the middle of that.

"So that's how it is," Harry said, breathing a little easier, feeling as if Rowan's discomfort had helped him calm down. "I think congratulations are in order, then. Although, I don't really remember if I've met anyone called Jeremiah Johnson."

"You wouldn't," the once more composed witch concluded, leaning back in her chair to rest casually against the backrest in a more comfortable position. "He is five years younger than we are, and I don't think you associated much with any Hufflepuffs at Hogwarts."

"Ah, no, I didn't," Harry allowed and decided to let that particular conversation end there. Rowan seemed relieved when he did so, and leaned forwards once again.

"I am not going to lie to you, Harry. I have my reservations about employing someone of your particular area of expertise. Using Necromancy as a medium for healing the disabled, bringing life to dead limbs and organs... Well, I think you see the rub of the matter, if you have read _The_ _Daily Prophet_ lately. There might be a riot, if we aren't too lucky. It might soil the reputation of the entire Care System..."

"I understand," Harry said in a voice that was quiet from disappointment. His eyes widened comically when Rowan picked out a scroll out of thin air, laid it out onto the table and stretched out a quill for him to take. He accepted it with numb fingers, not really understanding what was going on.

"Welcome to the staff, Healer Potter," Rowan said with a smile that softened her hardened features. Harry stared at her in bewilderment.

"I... But, you said!"

"I never did," she concluded, smile widening. "Just sign below my signature. I will then show you to your office. It was prepared for you yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Harry repeated dumbly. "But then you... then you had already decided."

"Is that a problem?"

Harry stared some more, then snapped out of his stupor and quickly put his signature onto the parchment, feeling a giddy emotion build up in his chest once all the bewilderment seeped away. "No," he decided, laying the quill down next to the contract. "No problem at all. In fact, I'm relieved you would take me. Like you said, there might be trouble coming from it."

Rowan's smile slowly dissipated, leaving a very grim expression behind. Her chocolate brown eyes stared deep into his cautious, red ones. "I think you will do brilliantly here, Harry. Frankly, things have been building up for so long. I think a riot might be just what we need to make a change. Things are moving in the wrong direction, from my perspective, and... We need something that will fan the flames, so to speak."

Harry couldn't believe his luck. If it had been anyone else, they might have refused him, even as early as at the application. But Rowan actually _wanted_ things to get messy, on his behalf. Counted on it, even. "Well then," he said, grinning delightedly. "Let's give 'em hell!"

Rowan looked back at him with a wide, shark-like smile. "Let's!"

* * *

With an excited strut, Harry legged through the fading greenery of the park, a few paces away from his new working place. He pulled his Muggle, woollen coat closer to his body at the unexpected gust of wind, that had the red and yellow maple leaves carpeting the ground stir up in a merry dance around his boot clad feet. He skipped over a wide puddle, giving a short courtesy to the small toad that sat croaking by its edge.

He continued out of the park and down the street towards central London. As he travelled closer to the Thames, the streets grew more and more crowded. Once he finally reached his destination on Coilbury Road, there were people all over, sandwiching him between them so that he could hardly make a full stop at all but had to slip through the crowd much like a cunning snake.

At long last, he stood on the threshold to 71 Coilbury Road, a tall brick building stretching high into the cloudless autumn sky. Entering through the dark green door, with a frosted window at eye level, he came into a small lobby with a grey and white checked marble floor. He trekked across it to the opposite wall, where a glowing button signalled one of the old elevators was on its way. Above the double doors to his right, a small iron hand moved from 5 to 0, and with a soft _ping_, the doors slid open behind the iron lattice door. Harry pushed the black grid aside and stepped onto the soft, red carpeting of the box, steeled himself with his well practised mantra not to panic by being trapped in such a confined space, and pushed number 7. The doors slid shut and the contraption began to move with a worrying _creak_.

Harry wiped some sweat off his brow once safely on the top floor, and straightened his back once he reached the black door with the gleaming golden sign 703 on it, leading to an apartment belonging to a Muggle family named Baker, which Harry had never met in person.

Having a quick look around, assured of the fact no one was looking, the wizard plucked a golden key out of his coat pocket and turned it upside down so that its teeth were pointed towards the gritty ceiling of the dim hallway. One of the old lamps, attached to the wall a few paces away, started to flicker with a dimly buzzing sound, as if it was about to go out. Then, it came alive again, and silenced. Harry put the key into its hole, upside down, and pushed it into place. There was a dull _snap_ and a swirl of golden magic as he twisted it half a turn and then pulled it out. The door was unlocked, and he was free to enter, not the unsuspecting home of one _G. Baker_, but the apartment he and Tom had purchased two days ago.

Looking down past the door handle, something small had changed. Something that would come undone as soon as he had entered through and closed the door. Just above the mail drop stood in a neat script: _T. M. Riddle. H. J. Potter. _

He had to smile. Despite Potter technically being ahead of Riddle in the alphabet, Tom always took it upon him to make sure his name made it to first place on their door signs. Harry had managed to make first place once, during their stay in Norway. But it had only taken one day for the names to mysteriously switch places, refusing to budge however hard Harry tried to remove them from their new positions. And indeed – their new apartment was treated no differently.

His light hand pushed the handle and he stepped into his new hallway with quick steps and closed the door just as fast. A short look out the spying hole told him he hadn't been noticed. He probably shouldn't worry, despite being surrounded by Muggles. These two-in-one apartments were created for sorcerers' use after all. No doubt, somebody else had lived here before them, and there couldn't have been any trouble, or they wouldn't have been allowed by the Ministry to move in.

He shrugged out of his coat, toed out of his boots and walked down the narrow corridor with adjoined rooms sporadically placed on each side of him. At the end of the elongated room was a lone window, showing little of the city itself and more of the neighbouring apartment complex, stretching high with a small coffee shop at its bottom.

Harry opened up the door immediately to his right and was met by peacefully cool air, just the right temperature for the dimly lit bedroom, which was impossibly big judging by the building's general layout. First thing when left alone, Tom had taken it upon himself to magically enlarge the rooms of their new living space, just like was his routine whenever the two wizards decided to settle down in an apartment. The houses they bought generally fitted his requirements for space, which had developed from his spending his youth either in a lavish mansion or an enormous castle.

Not that Harry was complaining – he rather enjoyed it, seeing as he was still quite claustrophobic. It was a condition he had developed in his younger teens, and he had been able to work with it under the years. He'd studied meditation techniques, and Tom had helped him further the small results he got from that by improving his Occlumency skills. Moving into a complex where he had to use the elevator, if he didn't want to move up and down seven levels of staircase, was a sort of therapy in itself. It would be challenging – but Harry would be damned if he wouldn't fight until the bitter end. He was dead set on ridding himself of his phobia, whatever it would take.

Tom still was thanatophobic as well, although he'd be hard pressed to admit it to anyone, even himself. He claimed it to be dealt with years ago, but Harry knew him too well, he could always tell when his partner was genuine, and when he wasn't.

Closing the door to the empty bedroom, so as not to let the warmer air from outside seep in, Harry backtracked and checked the kitchen, just in the beginning of the corridor. It was just as empty and just as spacious. He really hoped their furniture from China would arrive soon, so that their home wouldn't be so depressing, and so that they wouldn't have to spend their nights on stuffy, conjured mattresses.

He checked the office, opposite to the kitchen, the bathroom in the middle of the corridor, and the second office, which wasn't reserved for their countless books like the other was, but rather for potions' brewing and more concrete research. But Tom was nowhere to be seen, which only left two other options. Either, he was out, _or_...

Harry crossed the hallway again and came up to the window, noticing two dapple-grey doves sat peering at him from one of the windowsills on the neighbouring building. He chose the door to his left this time, right opposite the bedroom door, and pushed the handle. The sight that greeted him made his cheeks hurt because of his merry expression.

The living room was the most spacious one yet, with dark wooden walls, enormous arched windows and a brass chandelier hanging from the speckled ceiling. There was no furniture, just like in all the other rooms, but there was one single fireplace made out of heavy iron and polished stone. And in front of it, on a very low, conjured stool, sat Tom. His entire face was dusted with black and grey soot, as were his hands and arms, that peeked out under the rolled up sleeves of the black button-up shirt. Moreover, he looked furious, poking about in the hearth with stabbing motions of his wand. He didn't even notice there was someone at his back. And as he was a very paranoid man, that was saying something.

Not to startle him and potentially get cursed for it, Harry gently stepped closer and hunched down next to the hearth beside his partner. That caught Tom's attention, and he stopped his furious stabbing and sighed deeply, pulling a dirty hand through his messy locks of hair.

Harry laid a comforting hand onto his knee. "Tom, please stop this now. It is perfectly understandable that you aren't an expert in _every single line_ of magic. There are professional chimney craftsmen and Floo installers who would do a brilliant job, if you'd just let them."

"I do not need help for something as mundane as this. A _toddler_ could do it," Tom insisted coldly and swept Harry's hand away with an impatient motion, indicating he was preparing for another round of hearth wrestling. But his wrist was snatched before he could start waving his wand.

"Remember Chile?" he insisted with an intent glare. Tom gave him a mistrustful glance. "You insisted on installing all piping yourself, once we realised they were rusted beyond repair."

"I remember," Tom agreed coldly, "and as I recall, I did succeed indeed."

"Yes!" Harry exclaimed. "You did, but it took you three days!"

"That was a long time ago, do not hold it against me," Tom hissed and pulled his hand out of Harry's grip, before standing up and starting to pace in a restless manner.

"No, I'm merely making a point," Harry allowed kindly, arising as well. "You do not need to do everything yourself, to prove something... It's not as much depending on others as using them for help, so that you do not have to put time and effort into something _mundane_ such as this."

Tom stilled and seemed to ponder for a spell. Then, he turned to face his partner with a vague smirk on his lips. "_Using_ others for help. Interesting choice of words, coming from you."

"Well," Harry said, shrugging as if he hadn't deftly chosen those very words to calm the other down, "it's one way of rephrasing, and it's also true, although they certainly won't do it for free."

"No," Tom allowed with a softening smile and slipped closer to his lover's form, to wrap his arms loosely around his shoulders. Harry retaliated by snaking his arms around Tom's firm waist. "You do make a fair point. This is useless work for someone of my calibre. I'm wasting my precious time."

"Yes, you should use your time on something better," Harry breathed out as Tom leaned in.

Their lips met in a slow kiss that made warm sparkles crackle alive in Harry's stomach. He pulled his partner closer and started tracing soft pecks along his jaw. Unexpectedly, a sour, dusty taste met the wetness of his tongue. It made him chuckle. "Hey, you might have overdone it, you obsessive old coot. You're covered in soot."

Tom pulled away sharply and looked down on himself in stark horror. Deft fingers found hollow cheeks, and they began to shiver subtly once the feel of powder on their tips made Tom's obsessive-compulsive disorder sparkle alive.

"I need a bath," he decided in a quiet voice, giving Harry an odd sense of déjà vu, and quickly slunk out the door towards the bathroom. The sound of the tap being turned on and a heavy stream of water hitting the light porcelain of the tub travelled through the open doors and to Harry's ringing ears. He knew better than to disturb Tom at such a time, so he opted for tidying up the room instead.

Once all the soot was gone, he made way to the kitchen, deciding to make some tea while he waited for his obstinate partner to clean up. As they had been here for a couple of days, they had bought some food to fill up the cabinets that came with the apartment. They did have tea, but not much of it, and Harry would have to conjure a tea pot to boil the water in, for it had seemed unnecessary to buy something that would arrive by post soon enough.

Before he could start at it, though, there was an impatient _tapping_ at the lower part of the arched window, looking out at the river below. Harry opened it up to allow a puffy owl with sharp talons to silently swoop into the room, settling down onto the counter, where it held out one of its legs, where a heavy brown package was tied. A small note on it said:

_Mr. T. Riddle_

_71 Coilbury Rd., Apt. 703 ½_

_London, Britain_

And next to the address was the logo of the company in charge of delivering all their belongings from China. Harry untied the load, then petted the crème brown and white Barn Owl with affection. He startled when his gentle finger was pinched between the lids of the impatient creature's beak.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Irwin. I reckon you must be hungry. Ought to have been hard hunting with that package dangling about."

As Harry moved towards the upper cabinet housing the permanent Cooling Charm, as opposed to the one below which held a Freezing Charm instead, the middle sized owl jumped up into the air with its white wings widely spread, swooping forwards in an arch. Then, its talons stretched out just in time to grab a secure grip on its master's shoulder. Harry hissed mildly at the initial pain, which disappeared as soon as Irwin relaxed in her new position.

Inside the cabinet, Harry sorted through stiff packages of cheese, butter, eggs and paper bags of various vegetables. Once he found something he thought Irwin might like, he picked out the packet and carefully undid the lid. With careful precision, he peeled away one long strip of bacon, rolled it into a small scroll and carefully handed it over to the starved owl on his shoulder. Irwin immediately snatched it and gulped it down, clicking her beak lids together before giving a loud, fright inspiring _screech_ that made Harry's ears ring from the proximity. He hurriedly snatched her beak in a careful grip to silence her, afraid the sound might travel out into the corridor, alerting the Muggles something out of the ordinary was going on.

"Shush, you sorry little ragtag," he reprimanded in an affectionate whisper, before rolling up another scroll of bacon and feeding it to his and Tom's very independent pet. She gulped this one down as well and thankfully refrained from screeching again after clicking with her beak. Then, her head swirled around completely to look at the doorway, where her second, now very clean, master stood.

"Oh good," he commented, striding forwards with impatience, heading straight toward the little brown package on the counter top. "About time, bloody bastards, what took them so long? Service these days, it's not what it used to be."

Harry chuckled as he fed Irwin a third stripe of meat, which she accepted before taking flight, coming to perch on top of the upper cabinets above their heads. Harry wiped his fingers off on a wet cloth and put the remaining bacon back into the cool cabinet. "Says he who grew up with servants, whom he could order around at his own fancy."

"Those were the days," Tom admitted with a lazy smile, unwrapping the package and picking out a tiny green sofa, small enough to fit into a matchbox. He then proceeded to pick out tiny sets of chairs, tables, cupboards and bookshelves.

Harry sighed and wrapped his arms around his busybody of a partner. "No rest for the wicked, huh?" Tom hummed distractedly and kept on with his task. Harry tightened the grip a little. "Isn't there something you wanted to ask me?"

The body in his arms stilled for a moment, before Tom's head came around in an awkward angle, looking the smallest bit ashamed, although the look disappeared within seconds. "Forgive me, it completely slipped my mind," he said quietly, turning around completely to look at his lover. "How did it go?"

Harry grinned wickedly, which made Tom's tense shoulders relax completely, a soft hint of a smile curling his lips. "I start on Monday. Got my own office and everything, you should see the size of it." Tom rolled his eyes and Harry gave a short laugh, before releasing his smirking partner and digging a small trinket out of his pants pocket. "I've got something for you."

Tom took one look at it and then groaned in open dismay, before turning around and continuing his sorting of their belongings.

Harry huffed a little, though he was feeling more amused than anything, and impatiently shoved the small thing into the other's face so that he couldn't ignore it. "Oh, but it's tradition! I've bought you one ever since the first time we moved together," he exclaimed with a cheeky grin.

He got a very tired sigh in response, before his hand was impatiently swatted away. "You do realise I've got a life supply of those already, don't you? Whatever do you keep bringing me them for?"

"House warming present," Harry concluded and placed the gift onto the counter. Tom shot it an awful glower.

"Tradition is people who _do not_ live here bring gifts on their first visit. You've got it all backwards."

Harry chuckled a little and stole a kiss from his grumpy partner, before starting to help out with the unpacking. The ugly, porcelain cat figurine was left behind on the counter, under the watchful eyes of Irwin, as the two wizards moved into the first office to start organising their bookshelves, having already forgotten all about it.

The Barn Owl gave a short _click_ of its beak and slowly fell into a deep sleep. Muffled laughter could be heard from the other room, and a light prickle of rain splattered on the enormous glass windows. The little kitty slowly came alive, stretched its stiff porcelain limbs before curling up into a restful position, and became still once more.

* * *

The grand dining room was lit up by three glistening chandeliers hanging low over the polished long-table. Outside of the grand manor's windows, the first stars of the evening appeared in the slightly clouded sky. The _clinking_ of crystal tumblers could be heard as the five sorcerers around the dining table made yet another spontaneous toast. The wine was flowing, the dinner-guests were merry and young Lucius, who was not yet allowed by his parents to taste the wine, was starting to look a bit weary with how the adults around him behaved.

The stiff 16 year old's father toasted his cup of simple Frosted Lime Water, and winked in a sloppy manner. Lucius grimaced slightly, but nodded and took a quick sip of his drink, showing no signs of whether he thought it tedious drinking something so dull, or if he preferred it.

On the other side of the table, Tom sat rod straight, with a slight flush on his cheeks, looking quite short tempered and ready to strike. Which of course meant he wasn't showing any expression whatsoever.

Beside him sat Harry, in deep conversation with his dear friend Serena Malfoy, who sat at the head of the table, leaning across the white table cloth so that her copper curtain of hair flowed over her shoulders, swiping over her elbows. She frequently pulled it back with her faintly paint speckled hands, laying it in a safe twist on her back, but it kept untangling and sneaking back into position because of her many excited gestures.

Harry, on the other hand, kept spilling his drink over his hands as he frequently forgot he held it as he explained something particularly interesting for his intrigued friends. So he kept dabbing himself with napkins, that was, until Tom had snapped about ten minutes ago, forcefully spelling his hands clean for him. Now, as he made too wild gestures, his partner would send him a warning glare to make him stop. Thus, Harry had made sure to put his tumbler down at safe distance not to have any more mishaps.

At the moment, they were in the middle of Serena's career as an artist.

"She's awfully talented," Abraxas slurred with pride, gaining a brilliant smile from his wife and a disgusted eye-roll from his son.

"Yes, yes I've bought her work, several of 'em," Harry insisted. "One with the strange, abstract curvy shape..."

"It's an eye," Serena shoehorned in with exasperation.

"Oh, right," Harry said quickly. "Which moves about."

"It blinks!" Serena said and broke into giggles.

"Yes, of course it does," Harry agreed confidently, "and I also have that one of the black clad man, sneaking about around that big green... blob."

"You're not putting those up on my walls," Tom concluded in an icy tone, which made Serena sober up and shoot him a glare.

"Fine, I'll just put 'em up on _my _walls, then," Harry decided and had another big sip of wine.

"You have separate walls?" Abraxas exclaimed in disbelief and young Lucius sighed deeply in boredom.

Harry snickered into his own forearm while Tom sneered over the table at the other wizard. "Don't be stupid."

Abraxas looked extremely confused for a moment, then shrugged and took another drink from his tumbler. Serena pinched her lips together and manhandled all her hair over one shoulder to twist it like she would a dripping wet washing-cloth. It made her look like a mermaid, Harry mused with renewed amusement.

Next to him, Tom redirected his red eyes onto their hosts' son and looked to be contemplating something. Harry pinched him discretely on the arm to make him stop staring, as Lucius seemed to have noticed and looked very uncomfortable, but Tom just made to speak instead of stopping. "Is that the new style these days? That long hair... It seems a bit Muggle to me, what with those Hippies and whatnot these days."

"Tom! Don't be rude!" Harry exclaimed, doing his best to stay serious and not follow Abraxas example – breaking out in uncontrollable laughter.

Poor Lucius looked to all the world like a deer caught in the headlights, but then schooled his expression into a disgusted sneer. "Hardly, sir," he said with disgust. "It is a long since tradition for wizards of a high social standing to grow out their hair. I assure you, many of my _friends_ at school have done thus, although, not at all for the same reasons the simple-minded _Mudbloods_ do it."

"Very well, a plausible explanation," Tom said and smirked, holding his tumbler up in an accepting toast to the young wizard. Lucius seemed surprised, but courtly accepted the toast and drank from his glass as well.

Harry sighed deeply and rubbed his temples. Making Tom use the politically correct term Muggle-borns was a dead case – at least in private setting such as this one. And that Lucius, the man who had once threatened to kill Harry in the future, used such a word didn't surprise him, what with Abraxas as his father. But it was a little surprising Serena didn't seem to have affected her son more, as he did seem to hold more affection for her than for his father.

But as it were, Serena simply sighed as well and shook her head Harry's way, sharing his silent helplessness.

"May I be excused?" Lucius hurried to say now that a lazy silence had draped itself over the room. Abraxas met eyes with his wife, who straightened up and smiled kindly at her son.

"Yes of course, dear, but you'll miss desert. It's Snidgetberry Sweetcakes, your favourite!"

"No, Mother," Lucius said with a relieved smile, arising and striding up to kiss his flushed mother on the forehead. "That's _your_ favourite, not mine." Then, he turned to Harry and Tom with a small tilt of the head as a form of courtesy. "Mr Riddle, Mr Potter, a pleasure." And with that he seemed very excited to leave the drunken adults to their own devices.

Watching him leave, Harry felt a slight pinch in the heart, deriving from a deeply buried sense of longing. He still remembered the year the boy was born, sixteen years ago. Mort had turned nine that year, and it was also the year Harold got married to Keylee. Little Lucius had been so sweet, with little tufts of blonde hair on top of his pink head. Holding him, Harry had first experienced that odd sense of longing that he felt now. It had kept appearing as the people around him, his friends and family, began having children, and he had soon come to realise just how impossible his own situation was.

More than anything, Harry wanted to have children of his own. If only he had been a little older at the point where Mort made an entrance into his life, but he had been a mere boy of eighteen back then, fresh out of school and very immature. Furthermore, for obvious reasons, his choice in life partner didn't really allow for building a nuclear family. And even if they had made the decision to adopt, Harry was very clear on the fact that Tom truly despised children. No matter how loving a father Harry would be to a child, he also knew Tom wouldn't be able to handle it at all – especially not a child he had no familiar or emotional ties to beforehand.

So Harry held no delusions of a future filled with children of his own, and it saddened him terribly. 43 years of age, he was often questioned by strangers, colleges and patients of his home life, and again and again he had to explain that _no_, he did not have a heap of kids back at home waiting for him. Not that he would let anyone know of this sadness of his, of course, to all the world he was completely at ease with his situation. The only ones who knew of his feeling on the matter were Tom, naturally, and Silas, who was in a similar situation himself, although he didn't seem as infatuated with children in general as Harry was.

The dark eyed wizard tore his eyes away from the now empty doorway, took another sip of wine and refocused back on the conversation surrounding him.

"... go through with it. I thought I nipped the entire discussion in the bud two years ago, back when that bumbling buffoon Nobby Leach was made Minister for Magic," Abraxas claimed with a heated flush to his cheeks, swinging his arms about in an agitated manner. "What with those cussed Squib Rights marches, creating an awful havoc all over the country. I'll tell you, they ought to have offered me an Order of Merlin for getting rid of that blasted man."

"Beautiful work," Tom agreed lazily, his face cast in shadow as he leaned back against the backrest of his chair. "Couldn't have done it better myself."

Abraxas flushed even more at that, his mouth twisting into an excited grin that made little wrinkles appear at the corners of his face. "Didn't leave one trace behind. No one ever suspected it'd have been done by an inside man from the Wizengamot."

"Thank the Goddess for that," Serena cut in in a sharp tone, "a right out tricky situation, if I ever saw one. And I still don't see why you had to go dip your nose into it yourself, with all we could lose from it."

"Well someone had to do it," Abraxas argued just as sharply. "It all went down hill ever since those Independent Freedom nutters and that _Mudblood_ won the election in 62, and held onto it like nasty little leeches. Thank Merlin the Preservation Party took over after Leach resigned. Don't think I could've stayed in the country otherwise, they were changing all sorts of things all over. Bloody Blood Traitors, the lot of them."

Harry zoned out as Abraxas ranted, and recalled with dread the disastrous results of the reign of the Party for Independent Freedom back in the 60's. They had done their best to integrate the Muggle world with the magical one, resulting in uncountable paradoxes in the system as a whole. For one, all of a sudden, Muggles were legally allowed to wander into magical places that were supposed to be hidden from everyone who didn't belong there. If led by a sorcerer, a Muggle could now wander into Diagon Alley, onto the magical platforms at King's Cross, and even into Hogwarts, and all other magical institutions. Before their meddling, there had been ancient Muggle repellent charms cast around those places, to protect the magical population from discovery. But now, the Ministry had to do more damage limitation work than ever to make sure that the Muggles never learned too much, and that those that did kept things to themselves.

Another thing which had messed up the system was the rule that no Muggle widget should be meddled with magically, which really didn't make sense, in Harry's opinion. Thanks to P.I.F. you had to apply for permission every time you wanted to buy a Muggle invention and mess around with it. There was even a special department at the Ministry now, called the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, which sought out and confiscated trinkets here and there whenever they saw fit. From their perspective, they were doing it to prevent that the gadgets ended up in the possession of some poor, ignorant Muggle who could end up hurt, and fair enough, some ill-disposed sorcerers were handing bewitched artefacts out on purpose just for this reason. But mostly, people just wanted to make use of them, for convenience.

For example, the whole matter with magical transportation had become far trickier than it had been because of his new law. As the times had changed and the Muggles had started using cars to a much greater degree, the most logical solution should have been for the sorcerers to have access to variation of cars as well. The problem was, not everyone preferred to use Apparition, and not everyone mastered it perfectly. Then there were also those too young to use it. And in some circumstances, it was even illegal to Apparate to a location, such as into the middle of a Muggle city. You could also not Floo everywhere, that sort of transportation was very limited, and the cost of Floo Powder was ever increasing because of a lack of competition from other companies.

Left was the use of a broomstick, which in this time and era, was very risky. Back when sorcerers had first started using broomsticks for transportation, it had been a point of being something pedestrian that would blend in. But if someone walked around with a broomstick these days, they wouldn't blend in at all. Therefore, it would have been far better if a new form of transportation could be allowed, but with this new law, such a thing was completely out of question.

It had complicated things for the public transport services as well. The trains were such an old phenomenon, and hidden so well, they were hardly affected at all. But it was a close call for the Knight Bus, its only salvation being that it was made to rescue stranded sorcerers.

All in all, that particular party had ruined a great deal in the magical world, and even two years afterwards, the Sorcerers for Preservation Party was still busy doing damage limitation work on top of everything else that was going on in the political arena these days. They hadn't even gotten to the points Harry had listed to himself yet.

"Still, it was a close call," Serena snapped, making Harry refocus back on the conversation again. "With the _Prophet_ sniffing around at the tails of your robes. There has been some nasty rumours, not all of them too far from the truth, you can not deny that."

"Well, that comes from using underhanded tactics, doesn't it," her husband argued, looking very ruffled, and Harry decided to butt in to stop the two Malfoys from trashing each other.

"Despite everything else, I'm truly glad something was done about it," he stated, only slurring a little on the _something_. Oddly proud of himself because of this fact, and for managing to shut the others up, he continued. "I can see where they come from, and that particular party has done some good too, but mostly bad. Yeah, but this new thing, banning the Dark Arts, it's getting out of hand, don't you think?"

Tom turned to sneer openly at his partner, clearly not as impressed as he was by his drunken articulation, and conjured a glass of water for him to drink. Harry accepted it sullenly and drank it all in one go as Tom took the word in a far more composed tone.

"We need something to tip the scale," he stated, piercing Abraxas with an intent look. "You are part of the Preservation Party currently."

"Oh but I don't have that much influence," the other wizard hurried to add, his flushed face paling a little. "It's like Serena said, after my underhanded tête-à-tête with Leach, there are some rumours, and the other two parties are very suspicious of me in general."

"Well, the Equality Federation Party is always suspicious of everything," Serena cut in in a humoured tone and Harry shot her a quick grin in reply.

"Nevertheless," Tom dictated, "you are a member with influence, and you could sway things about, perhaps stall the proceedings."

"If I started to stir the potion, so to speak, it wouldn't be long before I was thrown out altogether," Abraxas argued. "You don't understand how hard it can be living with the Malfoy legacy sometimes. With the history we have, I get why people are suspicious. And the fact I'm a _wizard_ doesn't help matters – it's a conservative party after all."

"You think we need a woman?" Tom asked with a frown, and Harry frowned as well. He really wished gender wouldn't matter so much after all this time. Sometimes, it felt as if the Wizards' Rights Movement had been but a hopeful dream and nothing more.

"More specifically, we need a witch with a great contact network, with good history and a fit reputation."

"Um," Serena said and leaned over the table towards her husband, making her hair flow down over her arms again. "Don't you think it's time for deserts yet? What are those elves doing?"

The three wizards were struck by the same thought right then, just staring at her with wide eyes.

"Oh no but that's perfect," Tom murmured, taking the drunken witch in with greedy eyes. Harry nodded his acceptance, thinking it a brilliant idea. Serena had been part of the Wizengamot before after all. Her father had been the Minister many years ago, and she had made a name for herself in the line of Art. People liked her, trusted her and listened to her.

"But what would I have to do?" Serena argued after the idea had been discussed to a great length, during which the deserts had finally appeared, to her joyful excitement. "I can't just waltz in and think they will all bend their necks for me."

"No, but you can sway some of them," Tom stated. "You can delay the procedure and make sure the majority votes against it. The results of such a law passing would be disastrous, not only to us but to the entire society. And as soon as we can, Harry and I will make sure to join you."

To their great relief, after a little bribing and underhanded tickling of her ego, Serena consented and promised to do her best to become a member of the Wizengamot. It would take a little work, as there were only 49 seats available she would have to fill in for somebody else from the same party, but with her social standing that surely wouldn't be too big a problem.

"I do have to ask the Goddess of Fate, of course," she decided with a dignified sniff, which had Harry chuckling and the other two groaning. For he saw what they didn't. In Serena's empty tea cup, the Chances were forming a pattern for him to read. She would do it. And she knew it as well.

The two of them winked discretely to each other, before Serena loudly dictated for them to have another round of wine. The night dissolved into merry laughter after that.

* * *

_A/N: Thank you for reading! ^_^ And for all the wonderful reviews. Hope you enjoyed this new chapter. There seems to have been quite a bit of technical problems on the site lately, but as far as I can tell, most of them are dealt with by now. Let's cross our fingers! _

_Mischief managed! _

_(P.S. To _BlueAnchor: _Great to hear from you, I'm relieved you're doing alright, although you are busy. Take care!)_


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